


Lip Service

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: Babies, F/M, Family, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 03:45:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5728447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He doesn't remember their first kiss. It would be ridiculous to expect him to, but some days it bothers her."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lip Service

**Author's Note:**

> Unrepentant fluff that I wrote very quickly. Ranges from pre-series to the future.

He doesn't remember their first kiss.

It would be ridiculous to expect him to, but some days it bothers her. Some days she wants to shake him into memory or harbor a grudge, however unfair that is. However ridiculous.

Other days it's like a secret. A pleasant, bubbling warmth when she imagines telling him about it. When she imagines his jaw dropping and the deep creases around his eyes as he tries to think back.

* * *

 

_She's been telling herself for an hour that she isn't nervous. The instant he looks up and beckons her to the table, she realizes she's a terrible liar._

_"Kate_." _She says too loudly. Way,_ way _too loudly._

_"Kate," he echoes, smiling like he's used to it._

_He_ is _used to it. He'd have to be if what she's witnessed in the last hour is anything to go by._

_Jasmine! Elaine! Sandra! Wendy! Kim!_

_It's like a demented Mickey Mouse Club and she's the newest Mouseketeer, she thinks, miserably grateful that at least she didn't tell him she'd carried a watermelon._

_Any satisfaction she might have drawn from that little victory evaporates when he politely clears his throat and holds out his hand. She's shaking it exactly one-one-hundredth of a second before she realizes he was reaching for the book she's still clutching to her chest with the hand that_ isn't _vigorously pumping his up and down._

_"Oh. I . . . here!" She feels the heat creeping up the back of her neck as she jerks her fingers away and fumbles the book from hand to suddenly sweaty hand. It slips from her grasp and shoots toward him._

_"Whoa!" He just manages to slap it out of the air and on to the table in front of him_

_She must be apologizing. He must be telling her it's fine. She doesn't really know, though, because he's_ smiling _at her, and the blood is rushing in her ears. He's splaying one broad palm wide to hold the cover back and sneaking glances at her as he takes his time writing one line then another and another before the vigorous swoop of his signature._

_"Lovely to meet you, Kate."_

_He holds the book up toward her, idly twirling the sharpie in his other hand. She's caught between the desire to say something that's at least intelligible, if not meaningful, and a deep-seated need to_ run. _Instead, both her hands shoot out. She snatches up the book in one, the sharpie in the other._

_"I'm_ sorry," _she manages to croak, staring in horror at the marker. "You need that."_

_"I do, unfortunately." He catches her by the wrist, letting the sharpie clatter to the table as he leans forward to brush his lips over her knuckles. She gasps. Honest to God_ gasps, _and his smile broadens. He arches one eyebrow at her. "Well, we're past the handshake stage, aren't we?"_

* * *

 

He wouldn't remember if she told him. He couldn't possibly, and it's silly. It hardly counts.

But she does count it. And somewhere along the way, she starts thinking of it as their first.

* * *

 

She hates him a little for the their second kiss. Because she is one-hundred percent unprepared for him to lean in like that, right in the middle of the bullpen. Because he lets his lips hover over hers just long enough to leave her undeniably disappointed when he swerves for her cheek.

And then she hates him for it a lot, because it was just a ploy. Just something to knock her off her game long enough that he'd be well away with the purloined files by the time she recovered, and she absolutely cannot _believe_ his arrogance. His absolute _gall_ in thinking his little maneuver would have any effect on her at all.

Except, of course, it did, and she's seriously on the phone with his _mother_ trying to figure out what the hell he's up to, and more importantly, where he'd try to hide out. She's on the phone with his mother, and she downright loathes him for that.

But she still thinks of it as their second.

* * *

 

She's in trouble long before their third kiss. She just doesn't know it till then.

She's careful with her memories. The ones she cherishes anyway. She's had to be for fear they'll tarnish with too much handling. That they'll lose their power to soften those she'd gladly give up. So she guards them, wary of calling them up too often.

She tucks them away like the beach glass and sand dollars and funny foreign coins little Katie used to keep in the scarred music box with ballerina that wouldn't dance anymore after she pulled the spring too hard to see how it worked. Like she still tucks away her mother's ring and her father's watch every night in the box she still thinks of as new, even though it's been a year.

It's nature, not simply experience. She's been in the habit as long as she can remember. Closely guarding those moments and all their potential to bring joy when she most needs it.

It's not until their third kiss—a desperate ploy and not a ploy at all—that she realizes she's kept them tucked away. A moment in a book store he can't possibly remember. A chaste peck on the cheek in the middle of the bullpen. Two kisses wrapped around a hundred tucked-away memories they've made together.

It's just their third kiss, but she's been in trouble for a while.

 

* * *

She steals their fourth kiss.

She leaps into the unknown and takes him with her. It's terrifying, falling like that. Painful, with a ragged, awful year gaping between them. Devastating, because it might be too late.

The words she gives him aren't enough.

_I just want you_

She arches toward him, lips parted, and he's still as stone. The damage is done, and she sees her life stretching out before her. She sees herself with nothing but those tucked-away moments for the rest of her life.

And then, an instant before her heart breaks, he leaps too. He takes her with him, kissing her and kissing her and kissing her without number.

It's exquisite. Losing count is exquisite.

* * *

 

She loves kissing him. Being kissed by him. She loves the myriad ways his lips move over her body. She loves each new spark he brings to life and all the ways he makes her fizz and ache and bubble over with sensation.

He teases her about it. How easy she is. How simple a thing it is to bend her to his will with the hard press of lips to the top of her spine. With his mouth open against the slope of her breast or a fleeting peck on the tip of her nose.

He sneaks up behind her, lips at her ear, and asks if she wants to make out. The answer is yes. It's always yes, whether she's savage and defensive or dreamy and weightless in his arms. Whether it's waiting for his eyes to flutter open first thing in the morning so she can feel her own name in a lazy whisper against her skin, or drifting off at night to a dotted line of kisses coming slower and slower along her cheek, her jaw, the hollow of her shoulder.

However busy or exhausted or annoyed or distracted or content she is, the answer is always yes.

* * *

 

She's tired. Every last cell in her body is _tired_ , and she aches in unfamiliar places. In unfamiliar ways, and still, each dead-of-night moment that passes with another creak of the rocking chair is a wonder. Is a thrill that feels almost furtive.

Even when the baby opens his mouth and squawks. Even when one cry, then another splits the black silence and her head thumps and aches with it, she feels a deep-down, rippling thrill, like she's stolen something.

"Baby," she murmurs, passing her thumb over the cupid's bow mouth. "You're tired. You're _so_ tired. Why won't you sleep?"

"Baby things to do." His voice is a sleepy rumble from the doorway. "Baby people to see."

"Baby people." Kate shakes her head down at her son, trying but not really trying to hide her smile. "We woke you."

"One of you." He shuffles across the floor and drops on to the arm of the overstuffed rocker. He leans in and flutters his fingers over the roundness of the baby's stomach. "One of you woke me."

His blue eyes open wide. He fixes his father with an irritated look and howls again, kicking his feet and waving his fists. Kate winces, her aching breasts tingling with the sound.

"He ate?" He drops a sympathetic kiss on the top of her head.

"Ate. Burped. Sat still long enough for a diaper change. Eventually," she adds, tugging briefly at a toe as it grazes her hand in passing. "He's exhausted. Keeps falling asleep mid-bellow and waking right back up."

"Let me try?" He shifts on the arm of the chair and holds out his hands, hesitant.

She leans into his side. Draws the baby close to her chest and turns her head to press an awkward kiss to his ribs. She's sorry she woke him. Glad he's here. Fuzzily grateful that he's like this, even in the dead of night, careful and gentle with them both. She's overcome by another furtive thrill as he lifts the writhing, furious bundle from her arms.

"Crib time," he says, slipping his own words into the instant of silence as the baby drags in another breath. "No arguments."

She hears a solid thump and the air go out of him as a kick lands smack in his diaphragm. She doesn't quite catch the laugh before it can bubble up out of her. He shoots her a look over his shoulder that steals _her_ breath, even though she's beyond exhausted.

"You leave me no choice," he tells the baby gravely.

She watches, fascinated, as he hauls in a noisy breath, filling his lungs and puffing out his cheeks. The howling stops. The kicking and furiously waving fists slow. He looks absurd in the half light burning in the corner of the room. He looks ridiculous, but the baby is fascinated. Utterly still, then delighted when he lets out the air in one hurried puff and drags it back in again. Lets it out. Draws it in a third time and swoops in to drop a kiss on his nose in the last second, just as his cheeks collapse.

"We're agreed, then. Crib time."

She tenses as he bends at the waist and sets the baby down. She presses one arm to her breasts, bracing for the cry that doesn't come. He steps back from the crib, holding out a blind hand toward her. She takes it. Rises from the chair, and the two of them glide from the room together.

They fold into each other in the hallway. Leaning heavily and holding each other up. The moment goes on, not quite silent. The baby stirs, grunting and burbling to himself as he settles.

"How do you do that?" she mumbles sloppily in his ear.

"Magic." He shakes his head, owning up to the lie even as he tells it. "I have no idea. It just . . . it works sometimes."

He fills his cheeks. Drops a kiss on her nose. A demonstration. It makes her laugh. It makes her lift her chin, waiting for the kiss she knows will come.

"Magic," she whispers when it does. "Definitely magic."

**Author's Note:**

> Because Castle is definitely a fantastic kisser. And because he needed to do the puffin face. Because that's what you do with babies, Ray. The puffin face.


End file.
